Unmanned Ground Vehicle Navigation in Coordinate-Free and Localization-Free Wireless Sensor and Actuator Networks

We present a set of algorithms for the navigation of Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs) towards a set of pre-identified target nodes in coordinate-free and localization-free wireless sensor and actuator networks. The UGVs are equipped with a set of wireless listeners that provide sensing information about the potential field generated by the network of actuators. Two main navigation scenarios are considered: single-UGV, single-destination navigation and multi-UGV, multi-destination navigation. For the single-UGV, single-destination case, we present both centralized and distributed navigation algorithms. Both algorithms share a similar two-phase concept. In the first phase, the system assigns level numbers to individual nodes based on their hop distance from the target nodes. In the second phase, the UGV uses the potential field created by the network of actuators to move towards the target nodes, requiring cooperation between triplets of actuator nodes and the UGV. The hop distance to the target nodes is used to control the main moving direction while the potential field, which can be measured by listeners on the UGV, is used to determine the UGV’s movement. For the multi-UGV, multi-destination case, we present a decentralized allocation algorithm such that multiple UGVs avoid converging to the same destination. After each UGV determines its destination, the proposed navigation scheme is applied. The presented algorithms do not attempt to localize UGVs or sensor nodes and are therefore suitable for operating in GPS-free/denied environments. We also present a study of the communication complexity of the algorithms as well as simulation examples that verify the proposed algorithms and compare their performances.     

A new parallel algorithm for vertex priorities of data flow acyclic digraphs

Data flow acyclic directed graphs (digraph) are widely used to describe the data dependency of mesh-based scientific computing. The parallel execution of such digraphs can approximately depict the flowchart of parallel computing. During the period of parallel execution, vertex priorities are key performance factors. This paper firstly takes the distributed digraph and its resource-constrained parallel scheduling as the vertex priorities model, and then presents a new parallel algorithm for the solution of vertex priorities using the well-known technique of forward–backward iterations. Especially, in each iteration, a more efficient vertex ranking strategy is proposed. In the case of simple digraphs, both theoretical analysis and benchmarks show that the vertex priorities produced by such an algorithm will make the digraph scheduling time converge non-increasingly with the number of iterations. In other cases of non-simple digraphs, benchmarks also show that the new algorithm is superior to many traditional approaches. Embedding the new algorithm into the heuristic framework for the parallel sweeping solution of neutron transport applications, the new vertex priorities improve the performance by 20 % or so while the number of processors scales up from 32 to 2048.     

A saliency-driven robotic head with bio-inspired saccadic behaviors for social robotics

This paper presents a robotic head for social robots to attend to scene saliency with bio-inspired saccadic behaviors. Scene saliency is determined by measuring low-level static scene information, motion, and object prior knowledge. Towards the extracted saliency spots, the designed robotic head is able to turn gazes in a saccadic manner while obeying eye–head coordination laws with the proposed control scheme. The results of the simulation study and actual applications show the effectiveness of the proposed method in discovering of scene saliency and human-like head motion. The proposed techniques could possibly be applied to social robots to improve social sense and user experience in human–robot interaction.     

Multi-scale patch-based sparse appearance model for robust object tracking

When objects undergo large pose change, illumination variation or partial occlusion, most existing visual tracking algorithms tend to drift away from targets and even fail to track them. To address the issue, in this paper we propose a multi-scale patch-based appearance model with sparse representation and provide an efficient scheme involving the collaboration between multi-scale patches encoded by sparse coefficients. The key idea of our method is to model the appearance of an object by different scale patches, which are represented by sparse coefficients with different scale dictionaries. The model exploits both partial and spatial information of targets based on multi-scale patches. Afterwards, a similarity score of one candidate target is input into a particle filter framework to estimate the target state sequentially over time in visual tracking. Additionally, to decrease the visual drift caused by frequently updating model, we present a novel two-step object tracking method which exploits both the ground truth information of the target labeled in the first frame and the target obtained online with the multi-scale patch information. Experiments on some publicly available benchmarks of video sequences showed that the similarity involving complementary information can locate targets more accurately and the proposed tracker is more robust and effective than others.     

A one-shot bargaining strategy for dealing with multifarious opponents

Bargaining is an effective paradigm to solve the problem of resource allocation. The consideration of factors such as bounded rationality of negotiators, time constraints, incomplete information, and complexity of dynamic environment make the design of optimal strategy for one-shot bargaining much tougher than the situation that all bargainers are assumed to be absolutely rational. Lots of prediction-based strategies have been explored either based on assuming a finite number of models for opponents, or focusing on the prediction of opponent’s reserve price, deadline, or the probabilities of different behaviors. Following the methods of estimating opponent’s private information, this paper gives a strategy which improves the BLGAN strategy to adapt to various possible bargaining situations and deal with multifarious opponents. In addition, this paper compares the improved BLGAN strategy with related work. Experimental results show that the improved BLGAN strategy can outperform related ones when faced with various opponents, especially the agents who frequently change their strategies for anti-learning.     

A memetic algorithm for the capacitated m-ring-star problem

The Capacitated m-Ring-Star Problem (CmRSP) models a network topology design problem in the telecommunications industry. In this paper, we propose to solve this problem using a memetic algorithm that includes a crossover operation, a mutation operation, a local search involving three neighborhood operators, and a population selection strategy that maintains population diversity. Our approach generates the best known solutions for 131 out of 138 benchmark instances, improving on the previous best solutions for 24 of them, and exhibits more advantages on large benchmark instances when compared with the best existing approach. Additionally, all existing algorithms for this problem in literature assume that the underlying graph of the problem instance satisfies the triangle inequality rule; our approach does not require this assumption. We also generated a new set of 36 larger test instances based on a digital data service network price structure to serve as a new benchmark data set for future researchers.     

Exponential synchronization of two totally different chaotic systems based on a unified model

This paper presents an exponential synchronization scheme between two chaotic systems with different structures and parameters. A unified model consisting of a linear dynamic system and a bounded static nonlinear operator is employed to describe these totally different chaotic systems. A novel state feedback control law is established to exponentially synchronize the two unified models with different parameters. Most chaotic systems with different structures and parameters, such as Hopfield neural networks, cellular neural networks, Chua’s circuits, unified chaotic systems, Qi systems, and chaotic recurrent multilayer perceptrons, can be transformed into this unified model with the synchronization controller designed in a unified way. Two numerical examples are exploited to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed design schemes.     

Memristor-based chaotic neural networks for associative memory

In chaotic neural networks, the rich dynamic behaviors are generated from the contributions of spatio-temporal summation, continuous output function, and refractoriness. However, a large number of spatio-temporal summations in turn make the physical implementation of a chaotic neural network impractical. This paper proposes and investigates a memristor-based chaotic neural network model, which adequately utilizes the memristor with unique memory ability to realize the spatio-temporal summations in a simple way. Furthermore, the associative memory capabilities of the proposed memristor-based chaotic neural network have been demonstrated by conventional methods, including separation of superimposed pattern, many-to-many associations, and successive learning. Thanks to the nanometer scale size and automatic memory ability of the memristors, the proposed scheme is expected to greatly simplify the structure of chaotic neural network and promote the hardware implementation of chaotic neural networks.     

Learning high-dimensional correspondence via manifold learning and local approximation

The recent years have witnessed a surge of interests of learning high-dimensional correspondence, which is important for both machine learning and neural computation community. Manifold learning–based researches have been considered as one of the most promising directions. In this paper, by analyzing traditional methods, we summarized a new framework for high-dimensional correspondence learning. Within this framework, we also presented a new approach, Local Approximation Maximum Variance Unfolding. Compared with other machine learning–based methods, it could achieve higher accuracy. Besides, we also introduce how to use the proposed framework and methods in a concrete application, cross-system personalization (CSP). Promising experimental results on image alignment and CSP applications are proposed for demonstration.